I watched the VP debate last night and was again very uncomfortable seeing Palin in action. Perhaps it is because I am a woman, but to see her so out of her league makes me upset. Women have fought so hard to be able to break into politics, against stereotypes that we are intellectually inferior to men and can't go the distance. And now to see Palin emerge on the VP scene as unprepared as she is, well, I wish it were different.

The fact that the media is falling over themselves to increase their ratings with nonsense "analyses" after the interview is equally troubling. To call her style "folksy" and to say that because she surpassed expectations she had a victory is nothing but media spin.

This is what I saw from my couch. I saw a woman who, because she didn't know enough about the subjects and thus refused rudely to answer the posed questions, resort to flirting. I saw her wink and use voice and body language that was inappropriate to a professor, let alone a VP presidential candidate who might become a President one day. Her remark to call John Biden by his first name was not folksy. It was rude and pretentious. Her invocation of socceer moms and Joe six packs, her use of slang jargon, and her mispronunciations were not cute. They were demeaning, as if the middle class of which I am a part, cannot understand anything but street conversation.

George Stephanopoulos of ABC gave her debate an A- and her style an A. Based on what? The fact that she was coherent, even though she had little knowledge of the issues that were being debated? As a professor, this is so offensive, I don't even know where to begin. We don't give grades based on exceeding sub-standard expectations. We give grades based against a knowledge-set that must be met. We don't give grades based on "a good try." We give grades based on the quality of the work. And Palin performance was neither of these. It showed how much she doesn't know (as oral exams often do).